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Hardware to render arcade monitors obsolete?
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Harakiri:
Good afternoon fellow BYOAC members!

A few days ago i watched this video on youtube which made me curious regarding CRT monitor obsolescence:



Although, pricey for the components and a fiddly process to build the wiring harness, do you think we'll see a majority of MAME cabinets with LCDs rather than arcade CRTs?

emphatic:
Actually, the purpose of the video is showing RBG upscaled with a sync cleaner and a scanline generator. Doesn't have anything to do with MAME.  For MAME, you can just use the scanline generator to get similar results. That home-built sync cleaner is being prototyped into a PCB version with RGB scart input and d-sub output right now by the same guy who's currently selling the scanline generator (SLG3000).

To get the results above on an LCD screen you'd normally have to spend hundreds of dollars (XRBG2 scaler). Let's hope we'll see a one-in-all unit in the future for current/next gen screens but with a complete CRT emulation.
leapinlew:

--- Quote from: Harakiri on February 13, 2011, 11:25:37 am ---A few days ago i watched this video on youtube which made me curious regarding CRT monitor obsolescence:

Although, pricey for the components and a fiddly process to build the wiring harness, do you think we'll see a majority of MAME cabinets with LCDs rather than arcade CRTs?

--- End quote ---

CRT's becoming obsolete used to be a matter of when, not if. Not anymore.

Cheap CRT's in the form of TV's and monitors are still fairly easy to find, but it's difficult to get a 4:3 LCD and very difficult to get a new CRT. 
Xiaou2:
This is merely a scanline effect.

 However, its not even close to being a true CRT match.

 An older arcade monitor has a lower dot pitch (larger red,green & blue dots which make up each pixel)    The colors shadowmask is more than likely also larger and thicker.  The combination of these two cause colors to change a bit, and also to blend with the nearest neighboring colors.

 A good example, is to find a game in mame that has a checkerboard pattern of dots.  In the arcade, they did this on purpose, to either blend colors, or to make something look translucent. (such as a menu or character like a ghost or see-thru fireball)

 After a certain era of time, arcade monitors became more and more like PC monitors.  Higher dot pitch, higher resolution, virtually no color bleed, nor color accuracy issues.  When Ops replaced the original older monitors, all the classics looked different... but not everyone realized it... and soon many people have pretty much forgotten what their favorite games were actually designed to look like.

 The only way this is going to be simulated, is if someone can work out an algorithm for dot pitch based effects, taking into account each R,G,B dot size, color / brightness bleed, color mixing..etc.  Until then, all the classics seen are not accurate to how they were designed to be seen.

 ---

 Are can see here in the Pic of my Turbo monitor:

 A) Overall, the colors do not completely match the PC Monitor.  While the arcade monitor may be off a little in adjustment, you can see that there are no glaring HUE issues - as all colors are visibly accounted for. (see each car having a different color)

 B) The road has no "grain" to it.  The grain coming from the much larger shadow-mask. (not the scanline.  A shadowmask is the mesh wire grid that separates each red,green, and blue phosphor dot)

 C) You can clearly see the Car used Hot Pink on it... which NEVER would have been done intentionally, unless it was Intended to be blended with other colors.

 D) Lots of other single pixel colors which are staggered to create a different color shade, as seen in the real turbo.  Again, not intentionally meant to be seen individually as on the PC Monitor.
Xiaou2:
If you look at this magnified car,  you will see what looks like Wavy black lines.
We all know that the Shadowmask isnt wavy. Its an alternating grid.

 What you are seeing is an optical illusion.

 When looking at an old CRT under magnification, I was amazed to see that each RGB phosphor could be completely lit, or partially lit.  Meaning... that you could see the left half of a blue phosphor dot lit up only.. rather than the entire dot being lit.  (Its been a while, so it might have just been the triad group, but im pretty sure it was each phosphor last time I looked)

 The other reasons for the Wavy line... is that the light is spilling over the boundarys of the shadowmask... partially obscuring the lines. 
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